Did The Dursleys Have A Reason For Being Shockingly Awful Caregivers? A ‘Harry Potter’ Fan Has A Good Theory

A Harry Potter fan has come to the defense of the truly horrible Dursleys with a theory that’s brilliant because it seems so simple and obvious — why didn’t anyone think of it sooner? The theory, outlined on Tumblr, talks about what might have caused the Dursley’s inhumane treatment of Harry.

“…[the] Dursleys were just minding their own business when a horcrux was dumped on their doorstep. For the next decade it proceeded to warp their minds. Turning them from your garden variety insufferable human beings into horrible, heartless monsters. The fact that they survived such prolonged horcrux exposure without delving into insanity or abandoning a helpless child only solidifies their place among the pantheon of noble and virtuous heroes in the Harry Potter universe.”

Though it may seem like an epiphany and it certainly casts the family in a nicer light, it’s not without it’s problems. If we go with the idea that Harry, as a horcrux, would negatively effect the people around him, just like the necklace they carry around during the last book/final movie — why were the Weasleys always so nice to him? Why weren’t the other students at Hogwarts lining up to give him a beating on a regular basis? Sure he had some enemies but he also had a lot of friends who were very much behind him.Apparently though, the fan who wrote the theory, added a proviso, probably knowing that it might be taken seriously.

“Allow me to state for the record that the above description was intended to be read as satire. I do not honestly believe Harry is responsible for the abuse he suffered, nor do I seriously consider the Dursleys to be noble and virtuous heroes.”

But that’s the thing about Harry Potter lovers — they rival any fandom for their passion. A testament to the strength of J.K. Rowling’s story about a boy who finds out he’s part of a bigger, more fantastical world than he ever dreamed. And because of this insatiable appetite for the world of Harry Potter, fan fiction, sarcasm, and theories about the solutions to mysteries that remain open to interpretation are going to be a never-ending kind of black hole.

What Culture wrote a piece outlining seven of the crazier ones, but here’s just a few.

It’s all in Harry’s head.

Harry is the reincarnation of King Arthur.

J.K. Rowling isn’t a real person.

An Inquisitr story reported another fan argument, that maybe Hogwarts was simply an insane asylum.

Then there are the ones, like the speculation about the Dursleys, that make you look at the story in a different way. Maybe the Deathly Hallows anecdote isn’t just a story about three brothers but also a tale that has close ties to Voldemort, Snape and Harry?

Then there’s the heart-wrenching video that YouTube user kcawesome13 put together that has the important Snape scenes in chronological order — not technically a fan premise but something that completely shifts how you feel about a character that gets falsely painted with a pure evil brush.The point is that when an artist creates a world that seems to live and breathe, it draws people in and calls on them to interact with it in whatever way will keep it alive for them. And that can’t be such a bad thing.